"The next time you take to night-walking
in the neighborhood of Freeze-your-Bones, use those sharp eyes of yours
first, and make sure there's nobody else night walking in the garden
outside. Drop it, Jezebel! drop it!"
Keeping fast hold of Magdalen's arm with one hand, he took the letter
from her with the other, put it back into the open drawer, and locked
the bureau. She never struggled with him, she never spoke. Her energy
was gone; her powers of resistance were crushed. The terrors of that
horrible night, following one close on the other in reiterated shocks,
had struck her down at last. She yielded as submissively, she trembled
as helplessly, as the weakest woman living.
Old Mazey dropped her arm, and pointed with drunken solemnity to a chair
in an inner corner of the room. She sat down, still without uttering a
word. The veteran (breathing very hard over it) steadied himself on both
elbows against the slanting top of the bureau, and from that commanding
position addressed Magdalen once more.
"Come and be locked up!" said old Mazey, wagging his venerable head with
judicial severity. "There'll be a court of inquiry to-morrow morning,
and I'm witness--worse luck!--I'm witness.
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